


Prisoners of Our Own Device

by CirrusGrey



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Conversations, Episode Related, M/M, See Author's Note for details, Suicidal Thoughts, episode 187 spoilers, rating is for swears, wait this is my 100th magnus story holy cow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27543010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CirrusGrey/pseuds/CirrusGrey
Summary: SPOILERS FOR MAG 187!!!Martin does not know how to feel about Helen's death.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 30
Kudos: 174





	Prisoners of Our Own Device

**Author's Note:**

> Suicidal thoughts are canon-typical as of 186, aka Martin's plan to have Jon destroy him if they can't save the world.
> 
> Title from "Hotel California" by the Eagles, because that song has been stuck in my head since yesterday morning.

Martin does not know how to feel about Helen's death. He thinks he should be sad: she was sort of a friend, after all. At the very least, they'd known each other for quite a while. She hadn't  _ acted  _ like a friend, though, and he's not entirely sure she even cared for him at all. Still, it was quite nice to have someone else around as excited about his and Jon's relationship as he is.

If he's being honest with himself, he cares less about the fact that she's gone, and more about the fact that Jon killed her.

On the one hand, yes, she was an Avatar. Or... Watcher, or whatever it is Jon's calling it now. She was torturing people, and she was enjoying it, and therefore, by Martin's own prior judgement, she deserved to die.

On the other... Helen had felt off-limits. She wasn't... she wasn't  _ quite  _ a friend, but she wasn't  _ not  _ a friend, either. She'd helped them, on multiple occasions, and never...  _ directly  _ worked against them. She'd saved Jon's life, once, rescuing him from the Circus. There isn't so much emotional distance here as there was with the other Avatars, and it feels less like a smiting and more like a murder. The fact that Jon was willing to go through with it anyway... he's not sure what that says about Jon's current moral state.

On the third - and three hands doesn't sound so strange where the Distortion is concerned - if Jon is willing to destroy Avatars even if he  _ is  _ close to them, if he's willing to end them for the sake of the people trapped in their domains... well, it goes a fair ways to reassuring Martin that he'll be able to follow through on his own plan, and that, if they can't save the world, Jon  _ will  _ agree to end Martin's life.

And that's good. That's... that should be good. It's what Martin  _ wants, _ what he's decided, so... it's good, that Jon will help him.

"Jon?" he asks quietly, because he's making a lot of assumptions here and he's not going to be able to put this to rest until he knows for sure. "Why...  _ did  _ you kill Helen? What was she doing that was so bad?"

Jon doesn't answer for a moment. When Martin looks a him, he's opening and closing his mouth, searching for the words.

"...Nothing, really," he says eventually, and his voice is heavy. "Nothing worse than what we've seen in any of the other domains here."

Martin tilts his head to the side. "So why?"

Jon opens his mouth again; takes a breath; hesitates. "Did I ever tell you I asked her for help? When Peter brought you to the Panopticon."

That does not seem relevant, but... "You did not."

"She knew the way to the center," Jon says, staring off into the distance with a sorrowful look in his eyes. "She could have shown me, I could have gotten to you sooner, before..."

He does not need to hear the end of that sentence to know what Jon means.

"But?" he prompts.

Jon swallows. "She laughed in my face. I was begging,  _ pleading  _ her for help, and she... laughed." He takes a deep, shaky breath, and sighs. "And so I was too late. Peter sent you to the Lonely, I followed and was marked, and Elias was able to start his apocalypse."

They walk on in silence for a moment. Martin tries to ignore the mental image of Jon, desperate and panicked, on his knees in front of Helen's door begging for help. He knows he hurt Jon by going along with Peter, and the guilt will haunt him for the rest of his life.

But there are more important things to focus on, right now.

"So it was revenge, then?" he asks. "For... for helping to mark you with the Lonely?" It's not the answer he was hoping for, not an altruistic need to help people, but... at least it's nothing new.

"No," Jon says, and Martin blinks. "Helen likes... liked... the world as it is now. When she refused to help, back then, she  _ knew  _ what would happen if she delayed me, the possibilities it would open up. She may not have been working directly with Elias, but she  _ wanted  _ the world to end. And now that it has... she would have done anything in her power to keep it this way."

_ That  _ is new. But not bad new. Martin's rather glad, actually, that Jon is finally acting like there's some chance they may succeed.

He raises an eyebrow, aiming for a playful tone. "Not like she could do much to stop us, or, or hurt us, though."

"Not much she could do to hurt  _ me," _ Jon says, with chilling certainty in his voice.

_ Ah. _

Martin nearly stops walking as the realization of what Jon is saying sweeps over him.

He had killed Helen,  _ for Martin. _ To protect him, on the off chance that she would have tried to harm him to stop them fixing the world. Jon was willing to kill to save him.

...There's no fucking  _ way  _ he's going to kill Martin if he asks.

_ Shit. _

He's aware that it's probably unhealthy, the way his heart drops with dread at the idea of  _ not  _ dying. But, well. No healthy options left, and all that.

He looks at Jon. Jon is still watching the skyline ahead, the dark blob on the horizon that is, apparently, London. There are lines around his mouth and eyes, sadness and stress aging him far beyond his years.

Surely, surely, he'll understand. Why Martin wants this, why he would ask.

They'll just have to cross that bridge when they come to it, same as everything else. Martin's made his decision, and he won't be swayed.

He reaches out, and takes Jon's hand. "Like I said," he says softly. "I knew you had your reasons."

Jon exhales suddenly, a shaky release of breath that pulls the tension from his shoulders and sends his eyes fluttering shut. It occurs to Martin, then, that he expected Martin to be angry with him, for killing someone they had once called a friend.

Martin squeezes his hand, and Jon glances at him, a soft, sad smile on his face.

"Yeah," he says, and there is a world of regret in that word, that it had to end this way. "Yeah, I did."


End file.
